Anne L. Simon | Reflections on the Teche

Posts Tagged ‘Anne L. Simon’

NPM 2023: Cherita

Posted in Poetry, tagged Anne L. Simon, cherita, NPM 2023 on April 3, 2023| 3 Comments »

Does a poem ever wake you up in the morning, in that liminal space between sleep and awake? I had to get up an hour before I usually do to make sure I captured it.

My mother-in-law whom I wrote about yesterday refuses to write her memoir. She’s written five books now, three mystery novels based on stories from her days as a District Judge, and two historical fiction books. She asked me “What should I write next?” I emphatically said “Your memoir.” Yesterday she looked at me and turned the proverbial key on her lips meaning her lips are sealed. There are some things I already know. She grew up in New Jersey, went to Wellesley then to Yale Law School where she met my father-in-law and moved to Louisiana with him, a shocking move for her parents to grasp.

Mary Lee is writing cherita poems this month. “Cherita is the Malay word for story or tale. A cherita consists of a single stanza of a one-line verse, followed by a two-line verse, and then finishing with a three-line verse…The cherita tells a story.”

Storytelling is about healing the heart and mind.

It enables us to remember and not forget those who went before us, and also of those who loved or hurt us with their words and deeds. The recording, both oral and written, and sharing of stories is age-old. When we start to write, we bring to life the lost words of yesterday – from just a few moments ago to the time of our ancestors huddled around a roaring fire in some smoky cave of all our beginnings.

Be the storyteller and healer you are meant to be. Make us laugh, cry and be entranced by six lines of your words.

Storytelling is oxygen for the soul.
From th e cherita.com

The Progressive Poem is with Tabatha today. Follow along here.

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NPM 2023: Morning Blogger

Posted in Poetry, Progressive poem, Writing, tagged Anne L. Simon, Joni Mitchell, NPM 2023, Writing from song lyrics on April 2, 2023| 11 Comments »

The Kidlit Progressive Poem is with Heidi Mordhorst today. Watch as the magic unfolds with each line. Yesterday Mary Lee landed us solid on the end of a story and Heidi has added a bit of rain. Tomorrow Tabatha will take us a step further. but not too far because we have many miles to go before we sleep.

Molly Hogan and I are working through our self-created challenge to write a poem each day. We thought a calendar without dates, more like a Bingo card, would give our writing some kind of structure with freedom. I am a morning blogger. Last night I went to a Cajun Fais Do Do put on by The Books Along the Teche Literary Festival. I danced, and danced, and danced. Feet tired and head spinning, there was no way I could have produced a post, let alone a poem last night. So I left it alone, this space blank until this morning.

Lately I’ve been listening again to Joni Mitchell. Her songs defined my college days (my husband and I saw her in an intimate concert more than 40 years ago) and when I listen now, I hear the pure poetry and smooth soprano of her voice. I am skipping down the grid a few “weeks” and writing from a song.

The lyrics for A Case of You led me to write about my 91 year-old mother-in-law. She’s an incredible woman whom I admire beyond the stars.

In the Light

for Anne Lennan Simon

I’m a lonely writer.
I live on a clean white page.
I’m frightened by my own grief.
And I’m drawn to those who age.

I remember when you told me,
you said, “You are a deep griever.”
Surely you know grief like mine
‘Cause a part of you is a part of me
in these words I try to find.

You’re in my soul like dandelions.
You’re my longed for wish.
You’re so pretty and so wise,
beauty and wisdom are yours.
I want to be like you, and
Still be in the light.
And still be in the light.
Margaret Simon, after Joni Mitchell “A Case of You”

Anne Simon with artist-poet Melissa Bonin at a recent party for LEH (Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities).
Her son, my husband Jeff is in the background.

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Blood (or Rain) in the Cane Field

Posted in Books, Slice of Life, Writing, tagged Anne L. Simon, author, Blood in the Cane Field on June 3, 2014| 10 Comments »

Join the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge.

On Sunday in the middle of a downpour, my husband, my hero, was outside digging a trench to re-route water away from the front walk. He ended up in the last few minutes placing a piece of plywood over the growing puddle and covering it with industrial rugs from his office. He saved the day. People began arriving.

They came to greet the newest author in our family, Anne L. Simon, my mother-in-law. Following a degree from Wellesley, law school at Yale, a move to Louisiana, a law degree from LSU, practicing law with her husband, raising three smart children, running a successful campaign for judge, acting as a district judge, teaching at LSU law school, and serving as an ad-hoc judge for the Louisiana Supreme Court, Anne decided she wanted to be an author. Through grit and determination, not to mention high intelligence and a gift for writing, she published her first crime novel, Blood in the Cane Field.

Anne Simon signs copies of Blood in the Cane Field

Those of you from Louisiana will love this book for its fine attention to the Louisiana landscape. You may even recognize a few of the characters. Others will enjoy the details of the process of law. And others will enjoy the relationship between John Clark, the protagonist and public defender for a mixed race boy in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Medley Butterfield, a Mississippi girl down on her luck. Whatever your reason for reading, you will not be disappointed.

The book release party was a success. Minga, our grandmother name for Anne, sold and signed over 40 books. Of course, as she says, “These were my nears and dears. They had to buy it.” My prediction is that word will spread beyond the nears and dears, beyond the bayou, and even beyond the Mississippi River. The best part of this success is that she has nearly completed book 2, Blood in the Lake. So if you get hooked on Anne Simon’s writing, there will be more. In her 80th decade, this lawyer/mother/judge/author is not close to stopping.

I was proud to greet soggy people at my door and say, “Food is to your left. The author is to your right.”

Click the image to find the book on Amazon.

Judge Lori Landry says Blood in the Cane Field is a great beach read!

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Celebrating Publishing

Posted in Celebration Saturday, Teaching, Writing, tagged Anne L. Simon, Belmont Plantation, Blood in the Cane Field, Diane Moore, Janet Faulk-Gonzales, Laura Purdie Salas, publishing, Writes of Spring on May 3, 2014| 8 Comments »

Today, I celebrate publishing. I love author and love hanging out with authors, feeling like an author, and making my students feel like authors.

1. My student, Vannisa, placed 2nd in the Writes of Spring contest sponsored by the Lafayette Public Library. Her poem is published in an anthology of winners.

2. My poem, In Blue Veils, was published in the Birmingham Arts Journal. Thanks to Irene Latham for submitting it.

A draping oak at Belmont Plantation. Photo by Vickie Sullivan.

3. My friends and fellow authors, Diane Moore and Janet Faulk-Gonzales, have published a book together with the theme of porches. Each vignette features a porch of some kind. They held a book signing/reading on one of the most beautiful porches in New Iberia at Belmont Plantation.

A book to delight porch sitters, people who enjoy relaxing and meditating on a small porch or sitting with families and friends on Victorian style verandahs, telling stories and “taking the air.” The vignettes are quaint—some humorous, some tragic—but all incite memories of good times and relaxed hours “just porch sitting.” The cover is a photograph of glasswork rendered by Karen Bourque of Churchpoint, Louisiana, and the text includes eight whimsical illustrations by Paul Schexnayder of New Iberia, Louisiana.

4. My mother-in-law, Anne L. Simon, received her first shipment of her first novel, Blood in the Cane Field. I am so proud of her and will write more about her book. Her book is available on Amazon, a thrilling crime novel set in South Louisiana.

5. Poet Laura Purdie Salas left a comment for one of my students this week on our kidblog site. I am using the book Math Poetry by Betsy Franco with my youngest students. They are loving the writing and blogging. Erin wrote about Pegasus in her addition poem. She was thrilled that a “real author” left her a comment. She said out loud, “I am famous!” You can read their wonderful poems on our kidblog site.

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